Apparatuses are known to simulate driving land vehicles, which comprise a main frame with which are associated a seat element for the driver, command means actuated by the user such as a driving wheel, the brake, clutch and accelerator pedals and a projection screen onto which the driving environment where the driver is immersed during the simulation is projected.
The frame is selectively movable by a mechanical kinematism, which comprises a plurality of telescopic actuators, constrained to a fixed support base. The actuators provide to move the frame in space, both translating it along the three coordinated axes, and also providing rotations around said axes. In other words, the frame can be moved in all its six degrees of freedom.
These types of known simulation apparatus mostly derive from aeronautical applications and are not very suitable for simulations with land vehicles. This is because they have considerable limits in their performance and in their faithful reproduction of the sensations felt by a driver of a land vehicle. These disadvantages are due to the fact that the movements of a land vehicle require the spatial kinematism, for example with a hexapod architecture, to develop great accelerations in order to simulate yawing and longitudinal and lateral translations.
Developing great accelerations requires a large maneuvering space and therefore considerable travels of the actuators used, which could not in any case be reconciled, in production terms, for simulating driving on a land vehicle.
In fact, for a land vehicle, the movements that require to develop great accelerations are longitudinal translation, lateral translation and yawing.
On the contrary, given that the land vehicle is normally in contact with the ground, it does not have big movements of pitching, rolling or vertical translation.
The structural conformation of this known simulation device is therefore not optimum for the actions that it has to perform. It must also be added that these known simulation apparatuses are extremely bulky, in order to compensate for said limits.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, simulation apparatuses are also known which comprise a mobile base, translatable along guides disposed transverse with respect to each other, and which allow it to be moved on a plane. The frame is installed on the mobile base, and is movable by means of a hexapod-type kinematism as described above.
These known simulation apparatuses too, although they are developed to simulate driving land vehicles, are particularly bulky, complex to make and to manage, and particularly costly.
An apparatus is also known, to simulate driving a land vehicle, for example described in document U.S. Pat. No. 5,919,045 which also comprises a mobile base, sliding along two pairs of guides disposed transverse with respect to each other and in coordinated directions. A fifth wheel, on which the mobile base is mounted, is associated with one of the two pairs of guides.
The mobile base is translated along the guides in order to simulate the longitudinal and lateral translation, and can rotate around the fifth wheel, or around an axis of rotation orthogonal to the plane on which the guides lie, in order to simulate the yawing of a vehicle.
The frame is associated with the mobile base by means of kinematic mechanisms that determine the translation thereof along said axis of rotation and allow it to rotate around the directions of translation defined by the pairs of guides. The kinematic mechanisms therefore allow to simulate the effects of vertical movement, pitching and rolling which, in real solutions, are normally determined by the kinematics of suspensions.
However, the particular configuration of this known simulation apparatus has the disadvantage that it does not have a sufficient structural rigidity, it is difficult to scale up or down, given the same architecture, and it does not have any redundancy in its degrees of freedom.
Redundancy in the degrees of freedom, especially for simulation apparatuses with limited maneuvering spaces, would allow to return the frame to a neutral position, for example following a sudden acceleration in one direction, without giving an erroneous sensation of movement to the driver.
One purpose of the present invention is to obtain an apparatus for simulating driving a land vehicle that is relatively compact and not bulky.
Another purpose of the present invention is to obtain an apparatus that is simple to make and economical.
Another purpose of the present invention is to obtain an apparatus that has adequate structural rigidity, so as to adapt to the different driving conditions.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.